CHAPTER VI.

OF MAN'S FREE AGENCY.

SECTION I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

I. Man's Free Agency has been called in question by Speculative Minds.] All the foregoing inquiries concerning the moral constitution of man proceed on the supposition, that he has a freedom of choice between good and evil, and that, when he deliberately performs an action which he knows to be wrong, he renders himself justly obnoxious to punishment. That this supposition is agreeable to the common apprehensions of mankind will not be disputed.

From very early times, indeed, the truth of the supposition has been called in question by a few speculative men, who have contended that the actions we perform are the necessary result of the constitution of our minds, operated on by the circumstances of our external situation; and that what we call moral delinquencies are as much a part of our destiny as the corporeal or intellectual qualities we have received from nature. The argument in support of this doctrine has been proposed in various forms, and has been frequently urged with the confidence of demonstration.*

This question about predestination and free-will has furnished, in all ages and countries, inexhaustible matter of contention, both to philosophers and divines. In the ancient schools of Greece it is well known how generally and how keenly it was agitated. Among the Mahometans it constitutes one of the principal points of division between the followers of Omar and those of Ali; and among

* The rest of this chapter was thrown by the author into an appendix. In this edition it is inserted in its place, as being necessary to the discussion. Some retrenchments have been made in order to find room for the notes which are intended to give some slight intimations of the present state of the controversy. — ED.

the ancient Jews it was the subject of endless dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. It is scarcely necessary for me to add, what violent controversies it has produced, and still continues to produce, in the Christian world.

II. Explanation of Terms used in this Controversy.] As this controversy, like most others in metaphysics, has been involved in much unnecessary perplexity by the ambiguity of language, a few brief remarks on some equivocal terms connected with the question at issue may perhaps add something to the perspicuity and precision of the following reasonings.

1. The word volition is defined by Locke to be “an act of the mind, knowingly exerting that dominion it takes itself to have over any part of the man, by employing it in, or withholding it from, any particular action." Dr. Reid defines it more briefly to be "the determination of the mind to do or not to do something which we conceive to be in our power." He remarks, at the same time, that "this definition is not strictly logical, inasmuch as the determination of the mind is only another term for volition. But it ought to be observed, that the most simple acts of the mind do not admit of being logically defined. The only way to form a precise notion of them is to reflect attentively upon them as we feel them in ourselves. Without this reflection no definition can enable us to reason about them with correctness."t

2. It is necessary to form a distinct notion of what is meant by the word volition, in order to understand the import of the word will; for this last word properly expresses that power of the mind of which volition is the act, and it is only by attending to what we experience, while we are conscious of the act, that we can understand any thing concerning the nature of the power.

The word will, however, is not always used in this its proper acceptation, but is frequently substituted for volition; as when I say that my hand moves in obedience to my will. This, indeed, happens to the names of most of

* Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II. Chap. xxi. § 15. Essays on the Active Powers, Essay II. Chap. i.

the powers of the mind, — that the same word is employed to express the power and the act. Thus imagination signifies both the power and the act of imagining; abstraction signifies both the power and the act of abstracting; and so in other instances. But although the word will may, without departing from the usual forms of speech, be used indiscriminately for the power and the act, the word volition applies only to the latter; and it would undoubtedly contribute to the distinctness of our reasonings to restrict the signification of the word will entirely to the former.

It is not necessary, I apprehend, to enlarge any more on the meaning of these terms. It is to be learned only from careful reflection on what passes in our own minds, and to multiply words upon the subject would only involve it in obscurity.

3. There is, however, a state of the mind perfectly distinct both from the power and the act of willing, with which they have been frequently confounded, and of which it may therefore be proper to mention the characteristical marks. The state I refer to is properly called desire, the distinction between which and will was first clearly pointed out by Mr. Locke. "I find the will," says he, "often confounded with several of the affections, especially desire, and that by men who would not willingly be thought not to have had very distinct notions of things, and not to have writ very clearly about them."—"This," he justly adds, “has been no small occasion of obscurity and mistake in this matter, and therefore is, as much as may be, to be avoided." The substance of his remarks on the appropriate meaning of these two terms amounts to the two following propositions: 1. That at the same moment a man may desire one thing and will another. 2. That at the same moment a man may have contrary desires, but cannot have contrary wills. The notions, therefore, which ought to be annexed to the words will and desire are essentially different.

It will be proper, however, to state Mr. Locke's observations in his own words : "He that shall turn his thoughts inwards upon what passes in his own mind when he wills, shall see that the will or power of volition is conversant about nothing but that particular determination

of the mind whereby, barely by a thought, the mind endeavours to give rise, continuation, or stop to any action which it takes to be in its power. This, well considered, plainly shows, that the will is perfectly distinguished from desire, which, in the very same action, may have a quite contrary tendency from that which our wills set us upon. A man whom I cannot deny may oblige me to use persuasions to another, which, at the same time I am speaking, I may wish not to prevail on him. In this case, it is plain the will and desire run counter. I will the action that tends one way, whilst my desire tends another, and that the direct contrary. A man who, by a violent fit of gout in his limbs, finds a doziness in his head, or a want of appetite in his stomach, removed, desires to be eased too of the pain of his feet or hands (for wherever there is pain there is a desire to be rid of it); though yet, while he apprehends that the removal of the pain may translate the noxious humors to a more vital part, his will is never determined to any one action that may serve to remove this pain. Whence it is evident that desiring and willing are two distinct acts of the mind; and, consequently, that the will, which is but the power of volition, is much more distinct from desire."*

It is surprising how little this important passage has been attended to by Locke's successors.

Dr. Johnson on this, as on every other occasion where logical precision of ideas is called for in a definition, is strangely indistinct and inconsistent. Will he defines to be "that power by which we desire and purpose "; and he gives as its synonyme the scholastic word velleity. On turning to the article velleity, we are told that "it is the school term used to signify the lowest degree of desire"; in illustration of which Dr. South is quoted, according to whom "the wishing of a thing is not properly the willing it, but it is that which is called by the schools an imperfect velleity, and imports no more than an idle, inoperative complacency in and desire of the end, without any consideration of the means.

*

4. Instead of speaking (according to common phrase

Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II. Chap. xxi. § 30.

ology) of the influence of motives on the will, it would be much more correct to speak of the influence of motives on the agent. We are apt to forget what the will is, and to consider it as something inanimate and passive, the state of which can be altered only by the action of some external cause. The habitual use of the metaphorical word motives, to denote the intentions or purposes which accompany our voluntary actions, or, in other words, the ends which we have in view in the exercise of the power intrusted to us, has a strong tendency to confirm us in this error, by leading us to assimilate in fancy the volition of a mind to the motion of a body, and the circumstances which give rise to this volition to the vis motrix by which the motion is produced.

It is probably in order to facilitate the reception of his favorite scheme of necessity that Hobbes was led to substitute, instead of the old division of our faculties into the powers of the understanding and those of the will, a new division of his own, in which the name of cognitive powers was given to the former, and that of motive powers to the latter. To familiarize the ears of superficial readers to this phraseology was of itself one great step towards securing their suffrages against the supposition of man's free agency. To say that the will is determined by motive powers, is to employ a language which virtually implies a recognition of the very point in dispute. Accordingly, Mr. Belsham is at pains to keep the metaphorical origin of the word motive in the view of his readers, by prefixing to his argument in favor of the scheme of necessity the following definition :-"Motive, in this discussion, is to be understood in its most extensive sense. It expresses whatever MOVES or influences the mind in its choice." * 5. According to Mr. Locke, the ideas of liberty and of power are very nearly the same. "Every one, "he observes, "finds in himself a power to begin or forbear, continue or put an end to, several actions in himself. From the consideration of the extent of this power of the mind over the actions of the man, which every one finds in himself, arise the ideas of liberty and necessity." And a

* Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind, Chap. IX. Sect. i.